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Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have already combined on several memorable projects that could best be described as the good ("Sin City"), the bad ("Four Rooms") and the gloriously ugly ("From Dusk Till Dawn"), so it's no surprise that their next collaboration, "Grind House," is equal parts humorous, horrific and hokey. "It's awesome," Rodriguez reported last week of the flick, which is actually two smaller films with tongue-in-cheek trailers littered among them. "I was just filming last night. Quentin operates the second camera, and I'll be done shooting soon and then I'll be shooting his movie. It's going to be wild." The longtime friends are helping each other out with their respective films and expect the unorthodox project to hit theaters in April. Speaking about the trailers, Rodriguez added: "I can't say anything about it because those are really surprises. Danny Trejo ['Con Air'] is in one, but there's another one that's huge. People are going to wish that one was the movie." Finally, Rodriguez dropped the bombshell that there is already talk of a "Grind House" sequel, which would bring the fake ads from the first flick to fruition. "If those trailers are great enough," he revealed, "they might be part of the feature we do for the next 'Grind House.' "

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Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

'House' MatesDirectors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez tell Chris Nashawaty about ''Grind House,'' their double-feature tribute to the '70s genres they love

Best friends since the early '90s, dardevil directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are curently shooting Grind House (due in 2007), a tribute to the zombie romps, slasher flicks, and women-in-prison extravaganzas the two were weaned on. Each will direct a one-hour film, and the two will be bridged by a bunch of fake trailers. EW got Tarantino and Rodriguez together on a conference call and asked them about their new film and the films that inspired it.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did the two of you meet?QUENTIN TARANTINO We first met at the Toronto Film Festival, and we talked for about an hour and a half in a crowded hotel lobby. ROBERT RODRIGUEZ He had Reservoir Dogs, and I had El Mariachi. We were on panel discussions together about violence in the movies. And when we first met, he said to me, ''My next project, you're gonna like. It's called Pulp Fiction!'' And then I got back to Sony and found we had offices next to each other. That's how we hung out. He would read me stuff from Pulp Fiction, and I would show him storyboards for Desperado.

Where did the idea for Grind House come from?RODRIGUEZ I used to go to Quentin's house and he'd show me these movies in his home theater. He'd always program the night with some really great trailers from the era and then a feature, then a few more trailers, and then another feature. And I was like, ''Man, we have to re-create these nights for the rest of the world!'' And right then, he was like, ''We have to call it Grind House!''

How did Harvey and Bob Weinstein (whose Weinstein Co. will release Grind House) react when you pitched it to them? TARANTINO Truthfully, they're always happy whenever we want to do another movie. [Laughs] RODRIGUEZ It's always hard for Quentin and myself to say What are we going to follow up our last movie with? Because he did Kill Bill, and I did Sin City. What was nice about this is mentally, we could get ourselves off the hook of a follow-up, because we were like, ''It's an exploitation movie, it's a double feature, it almost doesn't count. It's like a throwaway.'' TARANTINO And because we wrote it with that attitude, I was surprised, because I think it's one of the best scripts I've ever written. This isn't going to be like Twilight Zone: The Movie. This is a legitimate double feature. With the trailers we're doing, it's gonna be like an alternate film universe. Me and Robert are going to do some trailers, but also Eli Roth [Hostel] is doing a trailer, and Edgar Wright [Shaun of the Dead] is doing one. RODRIGUEZ It's like, ''What?! We get all of that for 10 bucks!?'' It's like five movies in one.

Why do you love the exploitation movies of the '70s so much?RODRIGUEZ A lot of these movies, when Quentin would show them, the prints would be in disrepair. So sometimes you'd miss key lines of dialogue, or you could tell whole scenes were cut out because the film broke there. TARANTINO We were watching this Oliver Reed-Richard Widmark movie called The Sell-Out, and it was missing a reel right in the middle. And I've come to like it that way. I don't even want to know what happens in the missing reel. I like having to figure it out. Richard Widmark has this girl, and you can't tell if Oliver Reed had sex with her in the missing reel or not. Maybe he did, and that's why they're all mad at each other. It was Rick [Dazed and Confused] Linklater's idea that we do the missing reel. RODRIGUEZ We tried to use that stuff to our favor. In my film, we have a missing reel. A sign comes up in the second-half that says ''Missing Reel.'' It's like you went on a 20-minute bathroom break and you come back and all hell's broken loose.

Tell me about each of your Grind House films...TARANTINO Our original idea was to do a horror double feature. The genre I wanted to tackle was slasher films, because I'm a big fan of late-'70s, early-'80s slasher films. The only thing was, what makes them so good is the genre is so rigid. And I had an idea about a guy who kills girls with his car as opposed to a machete, and I put it in a slasher-film structure. Other than the big car moments, though, my thing could be a Eugene O'Neill play. These girls just talk and talk and talk. If it wasn't for the car stuff, I could do my thing on stage.

So it's like Christine meets Long Day's Journey Into Night...TARANTINO Yeah, but with more slasher elements! [Laughs] It's called Death Proof. I'm casting right now; more than likely the killer will be Mickey Rourke.

Quentin, what's your favorite slasher movie of all time?TARANTINO Well, since mine is a hybrid of a slasher movie and a car-chase flick, I'll give you one of each. The benchmark for this kind of car-chase flick is Vanishing Point. And as far as slasher films go, of course, I love Halloween and all those. But as time's gone on, I think My Bloody Valentine may be my favorite.

Robert, tell me about your film.RODRIGUEZ Mine's a zombie movie called Planet Terror. It feels like a John Carpenter movie that took place between Escape From New York and The Thing. I wanted to do a zombie script a while back because there hadn't been any good zombie movies in a while. I got about 30 pages into it, and then all these zombie movies came out. So I thought, Well, I don't have to make them zombies  there could be other reasons why they're like this. They're infected people. Quentin, what's that story? TARANTINO There was this Umberto Lenzi zombie movie in the '70s called Nightmare City, and a while ago some friends of mine were going to meet him in Rome, and I told them to tell him how much I loved Nightmare City. And they told him. And he goes, ''Zombies? What's theees zombies? They're infected people!''

Robert, since you're doing a zombie movie, what's your favorite zombie film?RODRIGUEZ I still love Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

When did you develop your love of these movies?TARANTINO When I was little they'd have TV ads for these movies on Saturday mornings. You'd be watching Soul Train and then a commercial would come on for a blaxploitation movie like Three the Hard Way or Brotherhood of Death. And as soon as I got old enough to look like I could get into an R-rated movie, I'd go to the ghetto theater in my neighborhood  the Carson Twin Cinema in Carson, Calif.  and I saw every kung-fu movie that came out from '76 on, every Italian horror film, pom-pom girl films. I would sit through movies I didn't even care for three times. Even as a kid I knew I would get things from The Girl From Starship Venus that I wouldn't get from the Hollywood films. RODRIGUEZ What made these exploitation movies great is that they were low-budget, they were trying to compete with major studios, they couldn't afford big stars. So they had what you would call ''exploitable elements'' like sex and violence. And then you would see it in this grind-house setting where they'd have two or three movies showing at once. The people going to those theaters got a whole different sense of American filmmaking because they were seeing things that weren't in the mainstream. And Quentin, of course, saw all of them.

So is the point of Grind House for the two of you to make the best ''crappy'' movie you can?TARANTINO You're bringing all the judgment there. That's your adjective. I never use the term crap. Ever! These are not so-bad-they're-good movies. I love this stuff! And that's what we want to re-create. For lack of a better word, we want Grind House to be a ride. I think we could both go out with our movies and have them stand on their own. But what's so good about this is it's two movies, and trailers, and bad prints, and if a little bit of gang violence breaks out in the theater, all the better! It just makes the whole experience more interactive!

Are you working on each other's Grind House films at all?RODRIGUEZ Quentin's directing second unit on mine and I'm going to be his DP.

The two of you have collaborated in the past  Quentin directed a sequence in Sin City and acted in From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado, and I know you show each other the scripts you're working on. How important is it to have a friend and collaborator like that?RODRIGUEZ We're really great friends first and we just happen to make movies second. TARANTINO One of the things that's really nice about it is we're great audience members for each other's movies. RODRIGUEZ I almost just make movies now so I can see them at Quentin's house.

Do you give each other criticism? Are you honest and ever say, ''This sucks''?RODRIGUEZ I probably would have to be honest with him if that ever came up. TARANTINO If I ever said that to Robert, he'd go, ''Great, rewrite it!'' RODRIGUEZ When Quentin read my script for Four Rooms, he added a bunch of lines and was like, ''I hope you don't mind.'' And then it became expected after that. Now, I'm like, ''Hey, when you read my script, if you have any ideas, pry them in there!'' There was one big speech in Planet Terror that I was trying to write to lure an actor for the part, and I just wrote in the script ''To be rewritten by QT.'' [Both crack up]

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Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. - Andy Warhol

Well, damn. Word comes from Film Ick and the Grind House Forum that Mickey Rourke has left the Stuntman Mike role in Quentin Tarantino's DEATH PROOF segment of GRIND HOUSE. That's a shame, but it'll be interesting to see who takes over the part... but, really, is QT gonna find anybody else who, because he finds it an unnecessary appendage,...CUTS OFF HIS OWN LITTLE FINGER!!? Yeah, that's right; Mickey Rourke will eat you and shit you out whole. I don't even know what that means, sucka.

It's also been revealed that Rose McGowan will appear in DEATH PROOF as Cherry, her PLANET TERROR character, and apparently there will be some crazy stuff going on with her legs but I'm not going to look any further into that business.

Finally, Tarantino himself will be appearing in Robert Rodriguez's PLANET TERROR, in a scene that's reportedly already been shot (the segment is pretty much done shooting as a whole), as a character simply called "The Rapist." Word his he wrote his own dialogue, as well. GRIND HOUSE is set to hit theaters April 6th, 2007.

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Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Here at the Con, Quentin Tarantino announced that Kurt "Snake Plissken" Russell will star as Stunt Man Mike in his upcoming slasher film Death Proof. Tarantino inked the deal with Russell last night, he said.

"I've always wanted to work with Kurt Russell," Tarantino said. "One of the things that was so great about his John Carpenter movies is the fact that there are alot of serious actors who wouldn't do them. There's a playfulness about him going that way. Snake Plissken is one of the most iconic characters in the last 20 years, it's fuckin' balls man. I think Stunt Man Mike is one of the best characters I've ever written."

Rodriguez showed footage from Planet Terror, his half of the Grindhouse double feature, which he hopes to finish filming in a few days.Tarantino plans to start production on Death Proof in four weeks. Rodriguez's footage, featuring Rose McGowan wearing a machine gun leg, earned a standing O.

Comic Con's director of the programming asked Rodriguez and Tarantino to stay an extra 30 minutes because Kevin Smith is late. They happily obliged. "You guys are really special, you come down here, stand in line, and it's so fucking hot down here, so we wanted to show you something special," Rodriguez said.

An audience member just asked the directors to respond to the old film vs. digital debate (Rodriguez is shooting his movie digitally and Tarantino is shooting on film). "Fuck the recording device," Tarantino replied. "It's about the magic."

Tarantino also elaborated on his long rumored pet project in downtown Los Angeles. "I've got the rights to one of the last Chinese language movie theaters: the Tsing Lee," Tarantino said. "I plan on showing Chinese language films there."

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Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art. - Andy Warhol

i just watched Big Trouble In Little China again last week and boy, is he great in that. so this is great news. he's exactly the sort of actor who deserves a comeback via a tarantino film. rourke already had his comeback with sin city so hopefully this will get russell back into some good films. i cant remember the last time he was in a movie i really loved.

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Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Quentin Tarantino just announced at the San Diego Comic-Con that Kurt Russell will play the slasher in his part of Grindhouse. Russell will play Stuntman Mike in "Death Proof." It was the first time Tarantino had been allowed to talk about the casting. "You've never seen him like this before," said Tarantino regarding Russell in the role. "Never, ever, ever!"

He also confirmed that Rosario Dawson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are in the film. The other half of the movie, "Planet Terror," was directed by Robert Rodriguez.

Grindhouse, which also features faux trailers and ads will run between the two pics as an intermission, opens on April 6.

Directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino world premiered footage from their new exploitation double feature Grindhouse at the San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday. The clip shown was cobbled together from the first of the two features  the Rodriguez-directed "Planet Terror"  a zombie flick.

The footage shown  with an intentional grainy, camp-like effect  kicked off with a sheriff's deputy busting into his cop shot ranted about just having his finger bitten off by a suspect he arrest. The other deputies and sheriff in the office all grab guns and proceed out to the cruiser. The cops stalk the cruiser but the detainee has escaped through a shattered rear window. The deputy asks if they see his finger. They don't... but they do find his ring.

From here the clip cuts to trailer-type piece for an anti-hero named Machete!  a tough looking biker type that wears a trench coat lined with very long knives and swords.

Then bam!  another segway, but this one goes into full on zombie action. It is unclear where the zombies are coming from, but a hospital seemed to play a central role. Freddy Rodriguez and Rose McGowan are there. Rose's character, Cherry, had an unfortunate scrape and has lost her right leg above the knee. When Rodriguez tries to get her to flee the now undead infested hospital, she exclaims "I don't have a leg!" This moves Rodriguez to walk over to a nearby table, break off one of its legs and jam it on the end of McGowan's bandaged stump. "You do now!" he says.

More zombie action follows as the two escape the hospital. In a later scene, Rodriguez offers McGowan a gift  a heavy-duty machine gun that clips onto her stump. Now with a machine gun as a leg, McGowan mows down several zombies with one, effective round-kick spray!

Tarantino, whose "Death Proof" (a slasher movie and the second of the Grindhouse features) starts shooting in about four weeks, told attendees at the Con that he always wanted to make a exploitation film that lived up to the cool poster artwork that accompanied most of the vintage exploitation movies.

"We're going to make two, sleazy grindhouse movies that will deliver on the posters and beyond!" said Tarantino. "This isn't some Twilight Zone the Movie f*cking thing. This is not a faux double feature. This is two f*cking movies for the price of one! You're $10 will be well spent at the Grindhouse, baby!"

Rodriguez said the "Planet Terror" shoots were solely at night and that he is talking with John Carpenter about providing music for the feature.

Tarantino also added that he would like to make two anime "Kill Bill" prequels. The first would be an origin film about Bill and his mentors, while the second would be another tale including The Bride.

My friend went to the comic-con panel and called with nerdy excitement-- he said the 'Planet Terror' footage was fantastic, and the machine-gun-leg is ridiculously awesome. I still am waiting for the annoucement that it will be two separate movies-- there's no way this is gonna be released as a 4 hour extravaganza. And if it really is-- I'm gonna have to find a place to smoke/drink while watching.

Grindhouse will be shot in the tradition of the '70s exploitation films that have significantly influenced both Rodriguez and Tarantino.

Rodriguez is currently in production on "Planet Terror" in Austin, Texas, with Elizabeth Avellan serving as producer. Tarantino is scheduled to begin shooting "Death Proof" in Austin in August. Erica Steinberg and Elizabeth Avellan are serving as producers.

Grindhouse will be released in theatres nationwide on Easter weekend - April 6, 2007.

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Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.